Brokers mull funding options for housing, energy sectors

Stockbrokers are considering suitable financing products to align the capital market with the huge financing requirements of the housing and energy sectors.

President, Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), Mr Ariyo Olusekun, who spoke on the preparations for the forthcoming capital market workshop, said the capital market has huge capacity to fund large capital intensive projects in the housing and energy sectors.

He said stockbrokers would use the forthcoming gathering to brainstorm on financing products that meet the requirements of the sectors.

“We all know the position of our power sector today and this is an avenue for us as brokers to bring experts in this industry together and create products that will suite needs. We want to come up with a product that will enable developers to raise funds to develop more housing unit so that everybody can solve their housing problems,” Ariyo said.

According to him, stockbrokers would work to develop products and services that would help to unlock the potential in the power and housing sectors.

He noted that the Nigeria capital market is big enough to provide funds for housing and energy sectors pointing out that people did not believe that Nigerian banks can fund the kind of projects they are funding now, the same situation that applied to the capital market.

“I want to assure you that this market is big enough to finance any project, we have been clamouring for high-intensive sectors of the economy to come and list in the market and we are assuring that when they come they would be able to raise the money needed,” Ariyo said.

Citing the pension funds of about N3.4 trillion, he said the challenge for capital market operators is to come up with investment instruments through which these funds can be invested and used to generate growth in the economy.

Also, Chairman, CIS’s Sub-committee on the National Workshops, Mr Bisi Oni, said brokers were focusing on the power and housing sectors because they are the two areas of pressing needs for most Nigerians.

“The stock market has ability to solve the funding problems in the sectors. At the end of the workshop, we believe we will be able to create products that will be tradable on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE),” Oni said.